Oliu assumes that the Competition Authority will not rule on the takeover bid until May.

Madrid / BarcelonaThe president of Banc Sabadell, Josep Oliu, assumes that the decision of the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) on the BBVA takeover bid will still take time: "I don't think it will be in April, it will be later," said Oliu this Tuesday during the presentation of the report. Catalan SME Observatory prepared by Pimec. A forecast that, according to sources familiar with the process, will surely come true after the Competition Authority plans to conduct a new market test, which could delay the results of its analysis for at least two more weeks. In recent weeks, it was assumed that the ruling would be published at the beginning of April.

BBVA and the Competition Authority are currently negotiating the final details of the commitments, such as those affecting the granting of credit to SMEs. The Bilbao-based bank has always maintained that the commitments put on the table are "unprecedented," in the words of its president, Carlos Torres. The bank has no doubt that the Competition Authority will endorse the operation and, in fact, in mid-March it even indicated that the final phase of the takeover bid (the period for acceptance by the CNMV) could open at the end of June. However, the schedule could be affected not only by the time it takes for the Competition Authority to publish its opinion, but also by the Spanish government's decision to refer the operation to the Council of Ministers (phase 3).

Common front of employers' associations

Meanwhile, the main Catalan employers' associations remain committed to opposing the takeover bid. This Tuesday, Foment del Treball (The Ministry of Finance) focused on the impact of the operation on SME credit and raised the potential for a reduction in this credit to "€75 billion" if the takeover is successful. "[If the hostile takeover were successful] it would mean eliminating up to €75 billion in credit for small and medium-sized businesses, and it would be very bad for the Spanish business community," said the president of the business organization, Josep Sánchez Llibre, in statements to the press in Madrid. In any case, it should be noted that the figure provided by Foment del Treball (The Ministry of Finance) is far from the volume of credit provided by Sabadell alone.

In fact, BBVA sources reject the statement made by the president of Fomento and insist that "the union with Sabadell is a clear commitment to the business world," citing as an example that "in Catalonia alone, €20 billion has been channeled in the last year." This Tuesday, Torres asserted that with "a greater scale [...] the bank will increase its credit granting capacity to families and businesses by €5 billion."

Fomento made this statement just after the event it organized with Cepyme, the Spanish employers' association for small and medium-sized businesses, the Confederation of Businessmen of Galicia, and the UGT (General Union of Workers' Unions) on the current financial market and Spanish SMEs. "[The €75 billion] is 50% of the credit that Sabadell gives to SMEs, which amounts to €150 billion," Sánchez Llibre reiterated. The meeting, which also included the Chambers of Commerce of the Valencian Community and Catalonia, served as a demonstration of a united front against BBVA's proposed takeover of Sabadell. "The operation provoked a unanimous social response against it," said Sabadell sources.

Sánchez Llibre also expressed confidence that the National Court will rule favorably on the appeal filed by Foment del Treball against the decision of the National Commission of Markets and Competition (CNMC) not to take its point of view into account during its analysis. The employers' association's allegations regarding the takeover bid for Sabadell were rejected by the CNMC, a decision against which the employers' association filed an appeal with the National Court, which was accepted on March 12.

Pimec also estimates the impact

For its part, the president of the Pime Observatory of Pimec, Oriol Amat, has also presented here today a report in which the possible loss of employment derived from the takeover and an office tank of between 50% and 10,600 workers are estimated. 75%, which would be equivalent to between 589 and 883 tancade branches. Regarding credit, the Pimec report contemplates a decrease of 54,393 million euros, less than the Fomento calculation. However, the SME employers have also denounced, like Fomento, that the CNMC has not taken their appeal into account because they are not an affected party.

"Sabadell is an integrative project throughout Spain and originating in Catalonia," Oliu recalled during the event at Pimec. "It's a bank capable of generating capital, with a sustainable dividend, and therefore provides a perfectly profitable investment," the bank's president asserted. "One in two SMEs in Spain and two in three in Catalonia are Sabadell customers," he added. "Sabadell shareholders aren't being given money; they're being offered an exchange for BBVA shares. Therefore, if the shareholder stays with Sabadell, they know they have the clients they want; but if they accept the takeover bid, they become shareholders in an international bank with interests in Mexico and Turkey" and many other countries. "It's better to move forward with our project than an alternative project," Oliu concluded.

Goldman Sachs, the fifth largest shareholder

And in the middle of the takeover bid Investor movements continueGoldman Sachs has increased its stake in Banco Sabadell to 3.128% and is now the bank's fifth-largest shareholder, according to records from the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV). In less than two weeks, the US bank has gone from controlling 1.1% of the capital to 3.1%. It now holds 168.3 million shares, which at the bank's current share price are valued at €437.8 million. Goldman Sachs is therefore the fifth-largest shareholder, behind BlackRock, which holds 6.5% of the share capital, the insurance company Zurich (4.1%), Dimensional Fund Advisors (3.75%), and investor David Martínez (3.49%).